Liger beer brings breweries, football communities together

BATON ROUGE - A collaboration for beer lovers joins football fans this weekend. Brewers in Baton Rouge and in Hammond produced a "rivalry" brew for Saturday's LSU-Southeastern game.

"We're happy to have our neighbors from down the street come over here so coming up with a brew from a brewery that's also in the Southeastern hometown was a perfect fit," said Tin Roof Brewery CEO Jacob Talley.

The brew was born between Hammond-based Gnarly Barley Brewery and Baton Rouge-based Tin Roof Brewery. The two have come together to brew a Rivalry Edition pale ale, and of course, they're calling it Liger.

Liger is a heavily-hopped, juicy, citrusy pale ale. It was brewed in Baton Rouge and Gnarly Barley has been there for every step of the process. Each beer can was labeled by hand, with a label depicting both football teams, a tiger and a lion.

The two breweries say they've always been really close, but one of their mutual friends brought the two together. An idea was born and the two shops decided to run with it.

"We've done collaborations with folks to do a brew together but nothing that has been for a specific event like a football game," said Talley.

Southeastern Louisiana University and Louisiana State University aren't exactly rivals. They two teams have only met on a field once, 69 years ago.

The released happened at 4 p.m. at Tin Roof Friday afternoon. There are 6-packs available and beer on tap. Liger t-shirts are also available for sale. The shirts were printed by Gateway Transition Center, an organization that serves and helps young adults with Autism, helping them be more independent.

Activities at Tin Roof will continue on Friday evening. There will also be a tailgating event at the brewery Saturday. Liger will be available until it sells out. The beer will not be sold in stores.